#Origami and Mathematics

[artisticdivasworld]

The Art of Origami: A Journey Through History, Use, and Mastery

In this series, we have been looking at various types of art as art forms.  We have visited collage, multi-media art, Mexican Folk Art, ATC’s, Japanese Kintsugi, Street Art and Murals, pottery, Chinese Kites, and now Origami.  Wow! That’s a lot of art.  I hope you have been following and have enjoyed learning about these different types of art around the world. Origami, the traditional Japanese…

[butchdazai]

Origami Pteranodon - combining mathematics and art

I wanted to share with you all this origami piece that I really like.

It is a single piece of paper, specifically a 4.25 m^2 sheet of paper, folded into the shape of a Pteranodon. It was made by physicist Robert Lang, who has made several other complicated origami pieces such as this one. As is traditionally done with origami, this piece is only comprised of folds and uses no glue nor cuts to the paper.

Lang made this piece—and his other complicated origami pieces—using software programs that he, himself, made, called Treemaker and ReferenceFinder, plus Mathematica. He makes the model in these programs first and then uses this as a guide to make giant origami. Lang spent two or three hours programming on these programs and then had the crease pattern ready, rather than spending the same amount of time folding a giant piece of paper and hoping the results came out nicely.

The Pteranodon has a wingspan of 4 meters and is reinforced with rods to allow it to hang up in the Redpath Museum in Montreal for everyone to see. Truly a great combination of art and mathematics, showing what beautiful things we can accomplish with these cross-domain projects.

[art-of-mathematics]

4 tiny tetrahedra friends (red, blue, yellow, green) and 1 octahedron guy (violet) make up the big tetrahedron squad (packed densely into a pretty nice tetrahedron glass cage):

(The octahedron guy is at the center of the friend group. Does it make them the mom friend?)

Release them from their glass cage and enjoy their company in the wild:

Here are the 5 members of the big tetrahedron squad, aligned into a fine line.

Here they begin stacking each other again:

The green friend gets lifted into the air:

The yellow friend is in the cage again:

[dykefication]

guy who gets unreasonably upset when people call kirigami origami

[uispeccoll]

#VoicesFromTheStacks

Image: Self Portrait with cranes from Hope Project (Photo credit: Clarissa Sligh)   

The Artist Books of Clarissa Sligh

In honor of Black History Month, we are highlighting artist, writer, and lecturer Clarissa Sligh. Born in Washington, D.C. and raised in Virginia, Sligh is often inspired by cultural, historical, and political events that intersect with moments in her life. Sligh considers these interactions, or “collisions,” between moments in history and events in one’s life to be significant and transformative. One such example of this is detailed in Sligh’s work “It Wasn’t Little Rock,” which discusses desegregation in public schools during the 1960s, a personal topic for Sligh, who was the lead plaintiff at the age of 15 in a school desegregation case.    

Images: Cover and inside page of "It Wasn't Little Rock" (2005)

A notable example of Sligh’s work and its reference to her personal experiences is her 1988 artist's book titled “What’s Happening with Momma?” Here, the artist engages users to “walk” through rooms of her childhood home, following the steps of accordion-folded strips of paper filled with text detailing memories of her sister’s birth in the home. This is Sligh’s first artist’s book, made through the Women’s Studio Workshop in New York.   

Images: Cover and inside page of "What's Happening with Momma" (1988)

Sligh earned a BS in Mathematics from Hampton Institute in Virginia, a BFA and an MFA in visual arts from Howard University, and an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania. Earlier in her career she had worked at NASA in the manned space flight program, eventually leaving to focus on working as an artist. Her works have been featured all over the world, notably at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and more. To learn more about Sligh and her works, visit the artist’s website. 

Images: Cloth enclosure, cover and inside page of "Voyage(r): A Tourist Map to Japan" (2000)

Images: Left: Inside page of "Reading Dick and Jane with Me" (1989). Right: Cover and origami crane for "Transforming Hate" (2016).

– Kaylee S., Special Collections Olson Graduate Assistant

[definegodliness]

Vision

A new leaf unfurls, shimmering Pristine and lime green, Steadfast, and doubtless in the Mathematical perfection of nature's Origami.

Pretty little thing.

All too easily overlooked In the short lived process Of its existence, as such.

Soon, this leaf, too, will turn Dark and dull, Yet sturdy and fully functional; Anonymous among its kin, so, swallowed By the entirety that is survival.

Yet now, still,

It is a vision of purity.

I dwell on this — my incessant Yearning purity; grounds keeper home In the graveyard Of my soul, Where candlelight burns In the darkest nights So that the eulogies, collected, May remain legible.

The tomes in here contain Dust-ridden truths, I rarely revisit, But when the wind decides To leaf through their pages I cannot help but glance a bit:

Hope —

Hope is a symbiont of the dead, It grows even on ossified bones And as such it needs not my attention To remain.

I ponder this.

Were I more reckless, I would add:

"What more, virulent And constricting hope becomes When given too much time under sun; How its roots then thirst and beg; How its tendrils latch at throats and Seek to squeeze out Just one tear To nurture the only fruits it may bear; Despair And dejection."

Please do not mistake the winter hardiness Of my resignation For the rot of cynicism.

Hope, symbiont of the dead, Merely stems from the past; It is the residual waste Of a moment, captured and recognized As a timeless truth For the length of its Experience.

However, such truths rarely live on for long In us, mortal beings.

They are malformed By our defining, and analyzing When we cease to live within them, and start Remembering.

Timeless truths are better left buried.

This is why I do not pick up the pen To ruin the tome with my temporary Imaginations.

One does not disturb the soil where Once stood a rose To once more see Its petals.

One can only respectfully maintain the earth Wherein it lays buried.

A leaf unfurls, Pristine and lime green; I dare not touch it due to its fragility.

What a pretty little thing.

This is what love Means to Me.

--- 14-2-2024, M.A. Tempels ©

[librarycomic]

The Phantom Scientist by Robin Cousin. Translated by Edward Gauvin. MIT Press, 2023. 9780262047869. 125pp.

This graphic novel opens with the arrival of Sorokin at the 4th Institute for the Study of Complex and Dynamic Systems. The armed clean-up crew that has just finished with the 3rd Institute is leaving the site, and one of the masked men hands things over to him. Sorokin watches a video from the previous director who explains the Institute a bit, from the type of researchers it includes to the fact that the system tends toward entropy and chaos in its last year, when results are expected. Sorokin's role is to slow the spread of chaos at the end of the 4th Institute during its final year.

Then on the next page, the book jumps forward six years, to the arrival of the final researcher, Stéphane, whose field is morphogenesis. He is offered a lab plus whatever resources he needs. On the way to his lab he meets two others who live in his building, Louise (linguistics) and Vilhelm (he seems to be modeling the Institute itself). As Louise gives him a tour, a lone scientist in the woods observes them. He's the so-called Phantom Scientist of the title, a man supposedly living in their building (though he's never been seen), a researcher looking into the mathematical problem of P vs. NP.

It all makes for a decent mystery full of drawings that I loved, and it had me searching and reading scientific terms. After finishing the book I was able to send a cryptic (to me anyway) text to the smartest math person I know, which will (I hope) lead me to a deeper understanding of P vs. NP next time we talk. If not, at least I'll have a better sense of how much my brain has petrified in recent years.

Worth noting: There's some cool stuff on plants and origami and much more in here.

[oncillaphoenix]

Fun fact there is lore for the lovenpeace-pkmn universe's N that i mostly don't get a chance to talk about. He's studying engineering and mathematics at Opelucid University and frequently hangs out with Bianca (who's studying ecology there) and Iris (who's a full-fledged gym leader now). He definitely knows Silver but has never mentioned this to his sisters. Recently he's gotten very into modular origami. Zekrom hangs out on the roofs of the campus buildings and sometimes models for the art students in exchange for access to painting supplies

[raccoonfallsharder]

How do you think Rocket would react to origami? To many people it seems like a pointless waste of paper, but for others it is something to master, the art of using your hands to turn a simple square of paper into complex shapes, a medium where the point is to make mistakes and learn and then make another one thats even better

omg this got so long. it was hard to write but i couldn’t stop apparently. thank you for making my brain think about this, you dear little raspberry truffle

˚. ✦.˳·˖✶ ⋆.✧̣̇˚.

similarly to coloring, i think that rocket grapples with the idea of origami at first. when you first introduce it to him, the fur on his nose wrinkles and his lip curls back in confusion.

but why? he asks flatly. it's just paper. it doesn’t do anything. doesn't blow up even a little bit.

rocket has a hard time with the idea of making things just to make them. he's spent too long just trying to survive, and even longer trying to justify his existence. creating is in his nature, but it’s always been intricately bound up in trying to escape, to get away, to live.

the first time he watches you fold a crane, he smirks, and then replicates it perfectly — even better than you had, with all your years of practice.

‘m a frickin mathematical and engineering genius, he reminds you smugly, and you sigh.

it’s supposed to be a meditative, learning process, you tell him with a raised eyebrow.

he frowns at you and scrutinizes the crane. you sayin i did it wrong?

that’s not the point, you tell him. or — it is the point. you’re kinda supposed to do it wrong at first.

that’s the most moronic frickin thing I’ve heard, rocket says flatly, and leaves.

you kind of can’t stop thinking about it though. at all. that evening, youdecide to set about crafting one of the more complex pieces you know. The next day he strolls by your typical spot casually, like he’s not just coming by to see how he can bug you (he totally is), and you show him the finished product.

figure it out, you tell him.

he takes it as a personal challenge (which it absolutely is) and it takes him about three or four attempts before he presents you with a perfect replica. you’ll have to try harder than that, he tells you snidely.

the next few rotations continue like this — then cycles, until you run out of forms you think will actually challenge him. but he’s looking forward to them now — it’s part of his daily routine, and it’s one of the only times you see him pause in his frenzy to focus solely on what he’s doing. like maybe he’s tapping into that quiet, thoughtful, intentional space without meaning to.

so the next day, when he comes to you, you don’t greet him with empty hands. instead, you give him a small stack of folding paper.

make the bowie, you tell him.

he blinks at you. how?

you shrug. you’re the frickin mathematical and engineering genius, you remind him mildly.

he takes the stack of patterned paper and runs one hand over the surface of it lingeringly, like he can call the form right out of the paper itself. like you’ve given him the gift of possibility.

he starts coming to sit by you every day, and he works on his sculptures. he’s his normal, mocking self before and after, but in those moments, he goes still and thoughtful. he folds and unfolds, studies his angles, sinks himself into every little crease and bend. even his fur seems quieter in these moments: laying calmly against his skin. it takes him three cycles — a laughably short time for anyone else — before he hands you a little ship.

it’s lovely. it only takes you a moment to realize that the runabouts can actually undock from the bowie’s frame, just like the real thing.

keep it, he tells you casually. it’s yours.

you hold it delicately, lovingly. thank you, you say to him, and mean it.

he just blinks at you. what’s next?

you hand him another stack of paper. make knowhere, you tell him.

he does.

make the hadron enforcer.

he does.

make the benatar.

he does.

make one of mantis’ abilisks.

he does.

the ritual continues. the platinum-haired children of knowhere start running around with little paper sculptures: all the captain’s practice versions, salvaged from the recycling bins.

and one day you tell him, make what you want, rocket.

he looks uncertain at first.

and then he does.

but here’s the thing. what i actually like to imagine most isn’t rocket figuring out and finding the value in crafting origami. it’s imagining him in twenty, thirty, even forty years (because i believe he lives a nice long life). old, with more gray than black in his mask and his ringtail. maybe a clipped ear from getting nicked by an ion blast while saving a planet from some tyrant or another. whiskers drooping, voice like he’s been smoking four packs a day for his entire life. the most lovable, grumpy granddad on knowhere. i like to imagine he sits at a little checkered tabletop outside his apartment, right at the edge of the dusty street. he’s got a beer and a stack of paper. the children of the children of knowhere giggle and hide behind the corners of buildings and he scowls at them, and folds away.

when one brave kid finally dares to come up and ask him what he’s working on today (because it’s always something different, every time), rocket doesn’t answer. he rolls his eyes and grumbles and hands them a little paper dog in a spacesuit. soon the table is lined with all the figures the children know: personally, or from stories. the cyborg who runs the city, wings extended. the golden sovereign and his f’saki. the adopted son of the old man himself. one by one, as they screw up their courage, the children come forward to claim their paper prizes, grinning and giggling their delight.

and rocket decides that there’s a purpose to all this paper-folding after all.

[rabbitindisguise]

Welcome to the origami publishing industry, we've got

Easy Origami For Kids

FROGS, ANIMALS, DRAGONS, BUTTERFLIES, or BUGS

Black and white guides from ten years ago that will blow your mind despite looking like a poorly formatted newspaper article

Christmas ornaments, nativity scenes, and other Christian iconography

10+ model book entirely on boxes

Dollar bill origami! Make a dollar bill into a Shape

PhD papers on origami mathematics

19374474839 fold Advanced models that will make you cry real human tears! Written by the creator themselves :) special articles on the creation process of the pattern included

Tessellations and modular origami

Origami kit with both instructions to basic models like the crane and paper (paper included) (it's mostly paper)

[tabithamoon]

pro tip: don't fall for audiophile nonsense

"Hi-Res" audio is a meme. I know this sounds like the "cinematic FPS" argument but your ears are literally incapable of hearing greater than 16-bit 48kHz audio.

breaking it down, first the 48kHz part: digital audio is stored in samples, which is a measure of the amplitude at a single point in time. the sample rate is how frequently the signal is sampled, forming our digital sound. and thanks to the Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem, which dictates that any band-limited signal can be represented perfectly with digital samples taken at twice it's frequency, for the human limit of 20kHz, 48kHz is actually more than enough as it can encode a signal up to 24kHz

as for the 16-bit part, that dictates the dynamic range of the audio, in other words, the difference between the loudest signal a format can reproduce compared to the quietest one when it starts blending in with noise

16-bit audio, with proper dither and correct encoding, has a practical 120dB of dynamic range, which is "greater than the difference between a mosquito somewhere in the same room and a jackhammer a foot away". you don't need 24-bit audio, although it doesn't hurt, unlike >48kHz audio (see this excellent post about how ultrasonics can lead to distortion on most gear, actively hurting sound quality, by Chris Montgomery, founder of xiph.org, the foundation behind the FLAC, Vorbis and Opus audio codecs, so you can know for damn sure he knows more about digital audio than most of us combined)

don't spend extra for hi-res files and such. They're really only useful if you're a producer, as the extra data helps you keep good quality while mixing your track.

And for the love of god don't fall into the MQA snake oil rabbit hole, it's lossy and the "origami" bullshit they're peddling adds distortion and artifacts to the file, and they went bankrupt recently so that just shows how good their product is

Don't confuse this with an excuse to listen to the shittiest 128kbps mp3s straight out of Napster, lossy vs lossless codecs is a different subject altogether (hint: just get the FLACs, but beware your bluetooth buds can't do lossless)

TL;DR just get good gear, a humble 16/44 FLAC file, and enjoy mathematically perfect music

(and later watch these amazing videos by Chris from earlier going over this much better than i ever could)

and please don't take anything i've said at face value, i'm no expert, do your own research!! that is the magic the internet enables you to do

wow an actual informative post on my trash blog go me

[agentbilliard]

saint senyoyi, better known as agent biliard has been with cerberus corp as an eo since 2023 and is LEVEL III. BEING CRUSHED BY A VENDING MACHINE has gifted them telekinesis, though PHYSICAL INFLUENCE WEAKENING WITH DISTANCE, DISTRACTIONS, AND LARGER WEIGHTS has also been noted. when they aren’t protecting the tri-state area, they are fond of playing rounds of fischer random by his lonesome and are never seen without A LEATHERBOUND JOURNAL. civilians think they are meticulous & benevolent, but some of the other agents see them as NEUROTIC & COWARDLY. cerberus corp should consider the fact that their last mission status was successful, although unsuccessfully cleaning up local garbage might have been more impressive when giving out the next one.

001.  GENERAL

name  saint senyoyi

nicknames  agent billiard, vender bender, any saint under the canonized sun courtesy of agent jester

age  thirty-four

date of birth  march 9, 1989

zodiac  answer

place of birth  harefield, hillingdon, london

current residence  brooklyn, new york city, new york

gender  cis man

pronouns  he/him

orientation  bisexual, biromantic

occupations  level iii agent at cerberus corp, mathematics teacher and head custodian at brooklyn academy of ostentatiously pubescent pricks

faceclaim  daniel kaluuya

height  5’8

tattoos  none (he does, however, have the divine patience and dearth of dignity required to doodle and calculate all over his forearms daily)

piercings  none (he does, however, have a fake nose ring from his stint in a school-sponsored production of annie wherein mr warbucks and his servants made liberal yet incorrect use of african-american vernacular english to teach middle schoolers about the cold war)

distinguishing features  there are few features of saint’s corporeal form that function as evidence of him being a good person, but at a minimum he has good grooming. his collars are pressed to perfection, his trousers are steamed to sublimity, his hair both facial and scalp-al is combed and clipped as much as possible. nonetheless, a good portion of his shirts are stained with presumably non-toxic paint or crumbs of a graphite muffin. the backs of his blazers are often adorned with sticky notes with adorable titles such as ‘YOUNGEST SENIOR CITIZEN’ and ‘NOBODY LIKES MATH’ and ‘MY FAVE FUNCTION IS =3’ from his students. what can he say? he’s sentimental to a fault. and far too broke to go to the laundromat every week.

positive traits  altruistic, diligent, humble, observant, organized, polite, pragmatic

negative traits  craven, cynical, deceitful, insecure, perfectionistic, pessimistic, unyielding

labels / tropes  absent-minded professor, bad liar, beware the quiet ones, stern teacher, the fettered

likes  alphabetical lists, dish washing, libraries, origami (he cannot do it whatsoever), pranks (if they’re done right), summer, students at brooklyn academy of ostentatiously pubescent pricks (at least they’re funny pricks)

dislikes  art museums, astronomy girlies (if he learns that he has pisces energy one more time he will lose it), drinking (hypocritical), level iii agents, living conditions in nyc (no relation to previous item), rollercoasters, the subway

fears  blood, cockroaches, crowds, death, disappointing his family, his family period, smooth peanut butter, snakes, spiders, vending machines

hobbies  assigning homework, billiards (surprising who?), playing chess, solving crosswords, scrabble, sudoku — only the coolest activities for him, obviously

habits  bites pencils when deep in thought, cracks back against chairs, gestures to whiteboards that simply don’t exist, writes with said pencils on imaginary paper

002.  EXTRA ORDINARY

near death experience…  

“you two! i swear on my non-denominational god that i am not forcing you to believe in, if i see you trying to axe deodorant the animals into making a little baby leopard in front of you, i’m calling your mums and telling them to pick you up this instant.”

the two snicker in response. saint isn’t sure how to respond if not with a wave of his hand, a pinch of his brow, a tour-guide-induced plug of his ear for when half his salary goes to dealing with the legal repercussions of incident number graham. this is his first field trip sitting in as a supervisor, and between the bloody boring itinerary his class has been breaking for the past few million hours and the boorish colleague he’s been paired up with he reckons that it will be his last. good riddance, he will say. good riddance, the class will say. really, the people of new york pay high enough taxes for their final destination to be more than a borough away. yet, here he stands in the densest stench he’s known since ap calculus was moved to seventh period.

this is not what he signed up for. you know what he said, when teachers asked what superpower he wanted to have? his voice would crack and his face would be lightning-split open into a barely-toothed grin and he would say he wanted to be a teacher because wow! they did so much for so little! and the teacher’s voice would crack and their face would be thundering with the truth and they would move on with their days because saint senyoyi had parents who hated him and peers who tolerated him and the guidance counsellor could deal with all that when she got back from happy hour.

he knows what he wants. something cold to drink. stupid brooklyn uniforms have gotten dark enough to hide period stains but continue displaying the effects axe deodorant has on his physiology with pure crystal. he excuses himself temporarily, tells the tour guide he’s off to the bathroom and that all the kids have do not resuscitates somewhere between their baggy pockets and knockoff gucci fanny packs, and gets to a vending machine. it’s bad, he knows, to continue to support capitalism and pollution after all the public service announcements from the lions of lying-about-admissions-policies colleges but it’s all he can afford and all that he wants and you know what superpower he did not wish for? guilt tripping. it’s a part of the faculty welcome package, but he’s never liked gifts.

no diet options. not like he cares. he hasn’t had much time to go to the gym lately. he just needs energy. a temporary fix.

the vending machine, he finds on a note far too small to be in compliance with the the occupational safety and health administration’s latest spicy issue, is temporarily unserviceable. not like he cares. he’s already annihilated the rules by leaving his class to their own devices, shiny and beepy and blackmail-filled as they are. this is just the narcotizing nightcap on the mushroom cloud. he slips a coin through the slot and waits.

and waits.

and waits.

and waits.

bloody hell. tommy j’s probably got his arse stuck between an alligator and a hard place by now, assuming sophie m’s greasy ipad hasn’t liquidated underneath the september sun. and assuming they haven’t broken up again, which is a flimsy variable by itself considering the seating arrangement’s got tommy j next to jason m and in front of jayson w and the three of them were exchanging notes yesterday like their lives depended on it. saint knocks on the glass. his parents never bothered to knock, but his sister had in the tune of an old ugandan choir song about welcoming and stars, so he does the same. welcome, cold coca-cola into his hands. welcome, please.

next he’s seeing stars. this is getting ridiculous. the machine is burping, whirring, choking, doing what saint should be doing as he details how the penguin populace has plummeted because of plastic straws and whatnot. he groans. only one thing left to do. he shakes.

and shakes.

and shakes.

and shakes.

next he’s seeing stars and blood and bone and you’re going to be a star saint because sophie m is taking a video of the entire ordeal as russell p drops his forged permission slip between sobs call 911 what’s the british version of 911 he’s english jayson same thing crapface pay attention in geology that’s geography jayson CALL 911 SCREAM CRY IS IT LUNCH IS HE DEAD SCREAM CRY I’M GETTING A REFUND CALL 911. there is glass everywhere. the ringing in his head is louder than the cries, the screams. pain is piercing yet heavy, paperwork that acts like a cactus to his poor eyes. that’s what he’s going to die as? the idiot who got crushed under a vending machine? no. he just needs to move. get out of the geysers and into a hospital that won’t charge him several billion dollars to get in.

he just needs to move.

he is not going to die before getting his one dollar bonus from the state exams.

SAINTS DO NOT DIE where did you come from father ABSOLUTE DISSOLUTION an inch towards the snake enclosure could save me SAVE YOURSELF swimming around nana’s lake house i wonder if i would taste good right now i wonder if a hot emt will try and save me SAVE YOURSELF you taught me how to swim by throwing me in the lake SAVE YOURSELF

he comes back with a massive headache, three exams to grade, and the power to move things with his mind. and a viral remix of his death, but he still hasn’t watched that in full. he’s told the chorus is incredibly vulgar.

power…  

“i wasn’t cheating!”

saint is making a scene for the first time since the tender age of five years old for bragging rights and a lukewarm beer. he hasn’t been accused of cheating since his preliminary foray into the cutthroat world of primary school mathletes, and that situation had the excuse of being started by a bespectacled potato sack no older than five years old herself. he’s kicked out for a myriad of reasons, none of which he believes are based on truth: he had fixed the game, he had fixed the bets, he had fixed his life and therefore had no business being with his friends. honestly? he thinks they just can’t look at him the same after seeing his broken body in a bed of glass, and he can’t blame them for that. he blames them for what happens, next, though.

he retreats to his apartment in shame, exile. daedalus has lost his son, he has lost his place on the top ten trivia masters. then he learns that he can fix everything in his apartment with nothing more than a mathematical buttload of attention and his mind. which, yeah, sounds boring when he puts it like that, but it’s telekinesis. objects already within arm’s reach require little to no effort to move towards him, while materials any farther than that require great concentration and a clear view to be moved. saint and telekinesis have a relationship comparable to a coparenting strategy on the verge of collapse, and none of it is particularly empowering. if he desires to take control of a stack of papers he has to focus on those papers, get an unobstructed path to those papers, stare at those papers for a solid few seconds wherein a hostile could stab him in the back. if he decides that he does not want to touch those papers, they have about a 50-50 chance of coming at him in an effortless tornado anyhow. it makes thinking inconvenient, which makes his life inconvenient. still, they’re something. he can lift roughly as much as he can with his arms, which is around the hundred-fifty pound mark with oscar-worthy thanks to a premium gym membership he passive-aggressively received from his mother some years back, although he has limits. many of them, in fact.

drawbacks / vulnerabilities…  

“shitterdoodle cookies.”

saint is on the same ground level of pathetic as his choice in curse words, for someone who has access to the school twitter account and all the bots that spam it for engagement. the heavier the object, the harder it is to move in manners that do not sound like nails on a chalkboard. the more he uses his ability, the more he is exhausted, liable to ramble about sensitive industry secrets or his feelings. neither will stop, neither will leave the conversational partner with any semblance of sanity. he has to be careful with how long he spends looking at anything, too, lest he drag some family heirloom other than his own through new york mud. also, everything he moves seems to really like his face. his pockets are nothing but bandaid collections by now.

cerberus corp…  

“and i am auditioning for the part of…”

that’s not quite right, is it? he clears his throat. a decade of teaching under his overly tight belt and there persists a lump in his throat whenever it must open. saint’s feelings on cerberus corp are complicated in the way that proving 1 + 1 = 2 is complicated. it’s a fact of life to most, easy to accept for some, but it’s also something that gets the smart alecks of the yearbook salivating and thus something he does not want to be involved in. well, strike that out and rewrite it in the past tense, his teachers would demand, for he now desires a status in american society that does not amount to school/fast food slander scene packs or graves with no return policy. his audition video was enough to get him invited for an in-person appointment, but he suspects that the possibility of him using lights and strings to get the effect of telekinesis pulled along a hundred-pound weight in comparison to his ounce of charisma.

he gets accepted, anyways, by some miracle. maybe it’s merely a seasonal investment in the marketability of a man who can soon hurl snowballs at unprecedented heights and velocities if he manages to concentrate. concentration is harder these days, however, and that descriptor of his career prospects comes with a near-overdose of pressure. he’s been with cerberus for roughly a month now, though the days blur with the hustle and bustle of extraordinarily tedious tasks assigned by the big bosses. saint is a worker bee to his core, though, and understands ranks, roles, and professional hierarchies better than breathing, so he questions nothing. as long as management of his powers is a possibility, the probability of him becoming a manger who has to do zero practical saving is above zero.

saint isn’t the best partner to have around, per se. his abilities are useful, but his personality isn’t much of an asset unless the mission involves stationary store espionage, and his desperation for a guide to everything is everlasting. nonetheless, he is nothing if not nice and accommodating to those he respects (ie everyone except agent jester. dishes can only go unwashed for so many days before his conscience is wiped clean of sanitary scruples) and aims for perfection. which isn’t the best philosophy to have around, per se, but at least he’ll do all the paperwork for you with zero prompting.

codename…  

“vender bender? i would rather die again than be called that for the rest of my life.”

it’s a joke, but saint’s never been proficient with making those. his comedy is a dependent variable, a misshapen animal lump coagulating to the back of circumstances that prove truth is stranger than fiction. proof: here, now, as his branding is being discussed in a manner far too formal for the setting they find themselves in. he has no idea how he got here, honestly. how he got with cerberus, how his card didn’t turn red at the door of the bar. he supposes it’s something like the pythagorean theorem, if the hypotenuse was meant to be the shortest side. he’s not the shortest level iii agent, thank the non-denominational god that he is not forcing anyone to believe in, but there is a nagging feeling that he does not belong, that however many lives he saves he will always be the guy stuck under the vending machine traumatising upwards of infinity children.

he’ll stick with something short and sweet, thank you very much. occam’s razor has never cut murphy’s law while shaving at three in the morning. it is time to show the party how real english billiards is played. he’s set up his own cushions at the left and right ends, shown off his custom snooker spectacles, let everyone know what a genius he is. this is his element, the art of arithmetic gambling. one shot and he’s set for the night, getting his drinks paid by everyone in a fifteen foot radius.

he takes the shot and gets his nose broken by the ball going straight to the hard, wooden edge and bouncing straight to his hard, idiotic face.

agent billiard. that’s a joke for the ages. it’s short, sweet, and a math pun. saint hates puns. cerberus loves the name. saint then decides he loves it, too, changing his social media handles accordingly.

(this is me begging for someone to have their agent suggest billiard after seeing saint smack himself in the face with a cue stick pls and thank you)

003.  EXTRA

tl;dr of backstory while i make it all nice and fancy: the middling middle child of a blackjack dealer for one of the most corrupt casinos in london and a professional sports gambler, saint has always wanted to help people. he’s just never liked people. he’s always liked math, though, and upon moving to the us of a for the sake of his older sister’s career in medicine, he made sure that, if he was to be ignored by his beloved parents, he would be ignored and rich. flash forward to getting his first job at his alma mater which has improved in much the same way that milk improves by growing curds and the lowest college admissions rate in the city, getting crushed by a vending machine, getting kicked out of his favourite bar for cheating at billiards with superpowers, and getting his cool agent nickname his cool agent roomie and his uncool first few missions; if you need a reluctant ass-kicker/incredible ass-kisser/high school math tutor, this is your guy. his mission suit is 100% an actual suit. it doesn’t look cool whatsoever tho it’s the same getup he got into for seventh grade winter formal <3 also he's a faithful reddit user. thats his biggest character flaw i think but he's addicted to r/billiards and does not intend on quitting ever

wanted connections page here!!

[candleshopmenace]

15 Questions, 15 Mutuals

Tagged by @nylazor!!!

1.) Are you named after anyone?

Nope! I chose my name when I was five-ish and never looked back.

2.) When was the last time you cried?

I honestly don’t even remember. It was probably about something stupid.

3.) Do you have kids? 

Definitely not, but I take care of my little sister enough that I’m basically her parent! I even chaperone her field trips sometimes.

4.) Do you use sarcasm a lot?

No, whatever gave you that idea? 🙄

5.) What sports have you played/play?

I played soccer and tennis while I was younger, and I’m currently on the Raiders team in my school’s JROTC program, which is basically a fitness team on steroids.

6.) What’s the first thing you notice about people?

Whether or not they look scared to talk to me, tbh.

7.) What’s your eye color?

Brown.

8.) Scary movies or happy endings?

Oh, definitely scary movies. 

9.) Any special talents?

I can write a top-scoring essay in less than thirty minutes.

10.) Where were you born?

I was born in Pensacola, Florida, but we moved away when I was four.

11.) What are your hobbies?

I like to write, read, work out, and spend time with my little sister! I also draw occasionally, and I like to bake. I’ve got a bunch of things that I was obsessed with for about a week before putting them down and never picking them back up, including ceramics, crocheting, and origami.

12.) Do you have any pets?

Until last year, I had a cat named Hot Dog.

13.) How tall are you?

5’2”/62 inches

14.) Favorite subject in school?

Hmm… anything to do with mathematics, and I enjoy my AP Language & Composition class.

15.) Dream job?

An astronaut!! 🌟 🪐

@ihavenomoralsss, @shouta-aizawow, @bakugou-klancey-lance, @dogsharks, @animentality, @tallhungryperson, @fizzybunniez, @frostedge27, @sextheaterchaos, @shadowdweller101, @geckothegremlin, @vexfulfolly, @katsu0h, @catlliecal, @explodo-murder, @growth-and-destruction

[purenguyening]

This is honestly more of a reminder for myself, but whenever the motivation strikes, I should look up if there's a specific mathematical reason why modular origami is always interlocked with units in multiples of three.

i.e. most modular sonobes can be done with 3, 12, 24, 30, 60, 120 units and so on.

[desi-yearning]

What comes in you mind when you think of math?

Oh there's a lot that comes to my mind when I think of Math. You have to bear with me being a nerd now as I'm in my very Math loving era today.

Beauty is the first thing that comes to my mind when I think of Mathematics. Patterns. Puzzles. Problems. All of them, have a very logical sense of aesthetically pleasing beauty to them. Mathematics is balanced. It's the truth. Purely logical and highly reasonable.

And if you think about it, almost every single thing in our life has Mathematics involved. The beauty of Sunflowers, the Fibonacci Sequence. Origami, that's a Mathematical pattern. Music, the patterns in Music Theory. Architecture and other visual arts depend entirely on Mathematics. And all that we find beautiful in our day to day life usually has beautiful geometry. Directly or indirectly, all the Sciences depend upon Mathematics too.

And this is what is considered as the most beautiful equation in Mathematics: The Euler's Identity that combines the 5 most important constants in Mathematics.

Here's a quote by Bertrand Russel to sum it all up: Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty—a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show. The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as poetry.

If I had to put it in a word, I think Math is art.

[sameer3004]

𝙎𝙩𝙚𝙢 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙖𝙢.

STEAM stands for science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics

The US and Europe have been pushing for an increase in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) graduates to fill the growing demand in STEM careers. Both educators and professionals involved in STEM related fields advocated for the introduction of

STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math) to K-12 curriculum. This paramount shift that STEAM proposes yields both staunch proponents and detractors

The bonding of the four pillars of STEM feeds upon one another. Science and math feed directly into technological and engineering applications. It’s not enough to teach each one individually, they are all included in a single acronym for a reason.

You can’t build a rocket, car, a watch, or even a bicycle without an understanding and the application of principles from all these areas. STEM is fundamentally connected to everything in our society and it’s imperative that we help students see those connections.

The new element being championed today is arts. Those in favor of STEAM recognize the ability of the arts to expand the limits of STEM education and application.

Advocates point to the added innovation and fearless creativity that a strong artistic foundation can provide. The president of Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), a leading advocate for the integration of arts into STEM, says that opening the door to the arts aids in the process of turning critical thinking into critical making.

Applying art to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in the classroom is only the first steam

If you are still skeptical that art can be applied to cutting edge science and technology then look no further than The Origami Revolution that recently aired as part of PBS’s NOVA program. The episode outlined the devel this optment of computer software written by Tomohiro Tachi who collaborated with Erik Demaine that used origami algorithms to design two dimensional crease patterns to create any three dimensional object from a piece of paper.